Troubling the Water: A Dying Lake and a Vanishing World in Cambodia

In 1871, Lieutenant Marcel Brossard de Corbigny, A French naval officer, set off from Phnom Penh toward Bangkok with a Cambodian mission to Siam. Brossard de Corbigny marveled at a huge lake that the convoy passed, the Tonle Sap. As related by author Abby Seiff, Brossard de Corbigny and other visitors to the region described the Tonle Sap as a great lake in a cloudless sky, and a freshwater sea so abundant that its bounty of fish could be scooped out by hand. They noted the dense jungle lining the shores with some of the trees submerged to their tops during the rainy season. They also remarked on the herds of wild elephants inhabiting the forest. Today, the wild elephants are long gone. The jungles have been decimated by commercial overharvesting, subsistence wood gathering, and wildfires brought on by climate change. And the famed fishery, at one time one of the most productive freshwater fisheries in the world, is all but depleted. Troubling the Water is an account of the effect of the depleted fishery on the desperately poor people who depend on the Tonle Sap for their livelihood. Tonle Sap Lake hydrologically is part of the Mekong River delta. The delta topography is low and flat, and the river basin naturally experiences alternating dry and wet seasons. Under low flow conditions, Tonle Sap Lake and the short river that drains its waters southward are tributary to the Mekong. However, during the rainy season, the Tonle Sap River reverses flow, bringing nutrient-rich water and, even more importantly, fish, into the lake. During the largest floods, the lake expands sixfold, inundating the adjacent jungle to the tops of the trees, allowing fish to feed on terrestrial resources, and adding sediment and nutrients that enrich the forests and rice paddies. Nearly 200 fish species inhabit the lake, making it a global biodiversity hotspot. A human fishing culture based on the flooding cycle developed and matured over centuries. People began living in floating villages on the lake and took advantage of the incredible productivity that provided a dependable source of income and protein. Beginning in the 1990s, however, anthropogenic activity in the Mekong watershed began to doom the lake fishery. Only a quarter of the Mekong River’s basin lies in China, but the river’s upper tributaries flow through deep gorges that are ideal for hydroelectric generation. Numerous dams now dampen flood cycles. Even in the Mekong’s lower basin with its low topographic relief, desperate southeast Asian nations are impounding the river with dams—some of which are four miles long—to generate hydroelectricity. These dams further reduce high flows, trap rich sediment, and block fish passage. The annual reversal of flow into Tonle Sap Lake has all but ceased, and the legendary fishery has collapsed. Seiff, a journalist who lived and reported for years in Cambodia, focuses her book on the disrupted lives of the poor, rural people who have depended on the lake’s resources all their lives, and often for generations. Her social and cultural reporting is visceral and affecting. Her chapters consist mostly of extensive interviews with contemporary fishers. In addition, she includes historical accounts from travelers who visited the region dating as far back as the 13th century. To explain the lake’s current ecological and cultural plight, she provides details about the demographic, climatic, and geopolitical forces that are remaking the Mekong basin. She also examines multiple, interrelated